WARNING
This 1991 correspondence between myself, Pastor Andrew Evans, then National Leader of the Assemblies of God (AOG) in Australia, and the National Executive documents one of the darkest and most defining periods of my life. It is deeply personal and confronting. If you have experienced religious trauma, I encourage you to proceed with caution, as this material may be triggering.
Why release this correspondence now?
I’ve pondered this for some time since I came across these letters over six months ago. There are several reasons.
- In my autobiography, A Life of Unlearning – a preacher’s struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith. I wrote a lot about what went on behind the scenes, but only a handful of people actually knew the despair that engulfed me. These letters lift the lid on the depth of the trauma.
- The letters also reveal a denomination’s inability to deal with humanity, and that holding on to unbending religious beliefs can be cruel.
- Let others, who’ve remained silent, struggled to articulate their experiences, and been bound by shame know they’re not alone. I know what that is like. When the first edition of A Life of Unlearning was published, my inbox was immediately flooded with 100s of emails from readers beginning with “your story is my story”. For so many, it was the first time they felt seen, connected, and hopeful. Perhaps this correspondence will do the same.
- These 1991 letters are a benchmark. It’s clear that, at this time, the Pentecostal world believed that homosexuality was a sin/a choice, God changes gays to become straight, and hell is the destination for those who chose that “lifestyle” or are in same-sex relationships. Many parts of Christianity have realised that the handful of verses used to condemn LGBTQ people are not speaking about sexual orientation as we know it today, Historical and cultural contexts make it clear the sexual activities mentioned are rape, pagan sexual practices such as temple prostitution and pederasty. Evangelicals and Pentecostals, however, have barely moved. In some circles, they have dug in harder.
- The ABC Compass program Reclaiming Pride is being aired tonight. This seems like an appropriate time for some truth-telling.
Context of the correspondence:
Firstly, the Assemblies of God in Australia, which I used to be a part of, rebranded as Australian Christian Churches in 2007, keeping the same beliefs but adopting a more contemporary name to reflect a growing, decentralised network of churches
For over two decades I’d done everything possible NOT to be gay, including sessions with a psychiatrist, becoming a “born again” Christian, conversion “therapy”, exorcisms, fasts, marrying a woman and having children, and prayer……..lots of prayer crying out to God for deliverance from my “curse”. At the beginning of 1991, just days before my 40th birthday, the cloak of denial I’d wrapped myself in was ripped away. I’d fallen in love with a man, Jason.
For the first time in my life, it was something I wanted. I wanted the love, the tenderness, the affection. Overnight, I’d become like a giddy teenager. The usual self-hatred and self-loathing melted away, leaving me with the most challenging decision of my life. Live a lie, pretend and keep everything I’d spent my life building, or be honest with myself, choose love, and lose it all.
On 24th April 1991, during the Assemblies of God National Conference at Darling Harbour in Sydney, in a private meeting, I resigned from the ministry and gave the National Superintendent, Andrew Evans, my ministerial credential card. This was to be the beginning of my escape.
Things got incredibly messy over the next couple of days. I’d been convinced that the devil had tricked me in order to destroy my national ministry. I was reminded of the words of Jesús “the thief (Satan) has come to rob, kill and destroy” (John 10:10) Overnight, I lost it all: my ministry, reputation, and Jason.
On Sunday, 28th April, I publicly confessed at the Central Coast Christian Life Centre, morning service, in front of several hundred people. This was my public act of repentance and resignation.
I discovered from the minutes of the Hunter District Assemblies of God Executive Meeting held Thursday, 16th May, 1991, that my credential had been withdrawn permanently.
Re Tony Venn- Brown: With deep regret we notify the Hunter District churches of the Commonwealth Executive’s withdrawal of Tony’s credential due to moral lapse. The withdrawal is permanent.
I’d had no communication about this.
Nine weeks had passed, and after hearing nothing, on 18th June, 1991, I wrote to Andrew Evans and the National Executive.
It began:
Dear Andrew and the National Executive,
This is a very sad letter that I feel I must write to you. Nine weeks have passed since I confessed my sin to you and Phil and resigned as a minister of the AOG. What have those nine weeks been like? The worst days of my life.
The handwritten PS at the end of the letter demonstrates what a distraught emotional state I was in.
Read full letter 1. AVB letter to AOG Executive and Andrew 18th June, 1991
Andrew and I had what I would call a warm relationship. He was incredibly supportive and encouraging of my ministry, Every Believer Evangelism. Andrew had even offered me an open invitation to preach at his church, Paradise, the most coveted pulpit in the country, whenever I had a free weekend.
Several weeks after pouring out my heart in the above letter, I’d heard nothing. I called Andrew on a Sunday night, and we spoke after he’d been preaching in Brisbane. I can’t recall the content of that conversation. I assume it would have been about what I’d been going through and the content of the letter above.
On the 26th of June 1991, Andrew responded to my letter.
As nothing had happened, this piece stood out to me:
“When Philip and I met with you in Sydney, we pointed out to you on that occasion that the support mechanism for your life would come from Paul and Kevin and the local church as we were too far away to be effective and from what I understand, they have been doing that very effectively. Thank God for wonderful friends such as they have been to you.”
A few weeks later, on 8th July 1991 received the official letter from Andrew and the AOG National Executive.
The letter is crumbled, as I crumpled it up and threw it on the floor when I first read it. I unravelled it and read it again. This happened several times. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I lost my power of speech.
What jumped out on the page was:
“the meeting resolved that ‘in view of the self-confessed repeated acts of moral failure over a period of many years, Tony Venn Brown’s ministerial credentials be revoked immediately, and that we do not recommend his return to the ministry.’”
And
“repeated acts of immorality almost surely meant that such behaviour would make it very difficult for a candidate who has had this problem for many years to ever take responsibility as a preacher of the gospel.”
They were right, but it was devastating to read this finally on the page that my ministry days were over. Someone with my “problem for many years” had no hope, it seemed.
I tried to get on with my life, but the damage was done. It was over, and there was no hope.
Five months later, on the 18th of November 1991, I wrote again to Andrew. There were some things that were important to me I wanted to get straight.
It began:
“I am writing in response to the letter you wrote dated 8th of July. It’s taken me some time to get around to writing to you. The letter and executive decision were devastating to me. As I was already in a traumatized state your letter threw me into a state of shock. I was unable to talk for at least a day. I wanted to write and respond to the executive’s decision but couldn’t face the emotional trauma of dealing with all that had happened. There are a number of things I want to resolve and finalise.”
Read full letter 4. AVB letter to Andrew Evans
On the 27th of November 1991, I received a reply.
In February 1992, finally facing the reality that God did not change people’s sexual orientation, I walked away from everything: my faith, family, and friends. It wasn’t a proud coming out, but a reluctant acceptance of the inevitable.
In 1997 Andrew stepped down as National Superintendent (AOG) and Brian Houston became the leader. He handed over the leadership of Paradise to his son Ashley in 2000 and entered politics in 2002. Andrew and I had no contact until I was in Adelaide for an LGBTQ event. I reached out to him and met for coffee. I was in a very different space, having found personal resolution and written my memoir. Reaching out to former people in my life was important to me. The warmth of our previous relationship was still there.
When I wrote to the National Executive in 2005, requesting a meeting. Andrew called me out of the blue one night and commended me on it. The harm and suffering I exposed in that letter is still going on in Pentecostal and Evangelical churches.
And now………
It is over half a century since the American Psychiatric Association realised there was nothing wrong with gay people, their theories were unfounded and their efforts to change them had failed; they removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.
It’s time for the Christian churches lagging behind to catch up.
No more treating LGBTQ people as second-class citizens in your faith communities
No more you’re welcome BUT…….
No more we accept you BUT……..
It’s time for ……we love you FULL STOP.
If you are interested in going on the journey, we are here to help.
Your trauma was real and the reasons for it were valid. Your reponse was human and the actions of the then-AOG were reprehensible. Only time can gift us the ability to contextualise what was impossible to see back then: You were right, and these people were not acting like people whom Jesus knows. The whole sorry show has barely improved since then. There has been more hypocrisy and cant than many can bear, which is why the Church (and the charismatic / pentacostal / evangelical / Hillsong-style of church ishas become a byword for disgrace and self-dealing. We are all better off without them, and the kind of whitewashed tombs who caused you such heartache will go (or have already gone!) to such judgement as they deserve.
I’ll be watching Compass tonight.
Hi Nathan. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have heard that things have hardly improved.
Had I been heterosexual the credential would still have been revoked because of the sexual activity and adultery.
My added shame of being gay compounded the trauma.
It’s a miracle I’m alive i reckon